Previously, industry sought to form polymeric constructions with surfaces free of defects and variations. Problems relating to consistency within the construction, efficiencies of manufacture, and compositional issues dominated research efforts.
More recently, industries, such as the adhesive, microfluidics, flexible electronics, or optics industries, have recognized potential value in surface microstructures and, as such, have turned to researching methods of forming surface structures of scale on the order of micrometer and smaller.
However, previous attempts to form such microstructures involve multi-step processes that are difficult to perform consistently and involve considerable fabrication cost.
The use of the same reference symbols in different drawings indicates similar or identical items.